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Sunday, November 13, 2016

Backstory - Part 2

After the Store championship, the next wave of releases posed the biggest threat to mass trooper lists yet, the dreaded Bantha Rider. With the combination of Stampede and Trample, the Bantha has the ability to do large amounts of unblockable damage to large numbers of figures. The Bantha has a large potential to do huge amounts of damage to troopers, wiping large portions of them off the map with ease. And with the massive rule, it becomes impossible to prevent the Bantha from getting to your troopers.

How does one counter the massive Bantha? As with firefighting, the best solution is to fight fire with fire. For Imperials, we have three options. General Weiss, who is way too expensive for a wall, an AT-ST, who suffers from a similar cost as Weiss and can only make one attack per round, or the Repulsor Tank, which can make two attacks and is a mere 10 points.

The tank is a scary thing to face. It threatens large amounts of damage for anything standing within its line of sight when it activates, but can put out powerful shots after moving nonetheless. And while its area denial and damage output are strong reasons to take it, the biggest reason to take it into the list is to block the Bantha. With both being Massive, they cannot even enter each other's spaces. Meaning that with proper positioning, the Bantha cannot threaten your troopers.

With this in mind, I have the following list:

2x Elite Stormtrooper
2x Stormtrooper
1x SC2-M Repulsor Tank

This is the list I brought to regional in Spring 2016. The regionals is split into two sections, the first is a 4-round Swiss to determine positions, followed a 3-round elimination consisting of the top 8 from Swiss.

Regionals consisted of primarily Scum and Rebel players, with only a few Imperials mixed in. The first four rounds I do quite well in, going 4-0 for Swiss. First round of eliminations I beat a scum list, but the second round I face an Imperial list that's nearly identical to my original list:

It's a rough round that largely comes down to dice (I still blame the round turning around due to a triple-damage grenade) But it reinforces a realization I'd been getting in the couple of months since the store championship:

My list is really good against Rebel and Scum, but weak against Imperials.

Why is this? There's a couple of reasons. Imperials are typically more durable, with larger health pools and more black dice than other factions. Plus, every Imperial list runs Elite Stormtroopers, which can munch through my basic Stormtroopers, who are surprisingly important for dealing damage. In essence, my list is bad against Imperial lists that run numerous elite troopers. (Remember this in Part 3, it's important.)